Efficient cleaning is one of the requirement which drives consumer acceptance of cleaning products. Such a requirement is necessary to provide compositions with a broad spectrum of soil removal such as greasy and oily soils respectively present on the kitchen and bathroom surfaces. To fulfill such cleaning requirement, products containing hypochlorite bleach have been formulated, wherein such hypochlorite component serves as a strong oxidiser to assist in the chemical degradation, break-up and removal of stains and soils. A further advantage to the use of said hypochlorite component in cleaning products is that it also serves as an effective disinfectant. However, a problem encountered with the use of such bleach-containing composition is that of the resulting bleach malodour on the hands produced by contacting the liquid composition with the hands, even after several rinses. Numerous solutions have been proposed in the art to solve the problem of bleach malodour.
One solution has been proposed with the use of a volatile perfume composition in hypochlorite bleach containing composition as described in EP 439 878.
Another solution has been described in EP 606 707 which provides a composition, comprising a polymeric component together with a hypochlorite compound, exhibiting reduced in-product bleach malodour as well as reduced bleach malodour on the cleaned surface. Such benefit is believed to be due to the high yield viscosity of the composition which trap the bleach molecules responsible of bleach malodour within vesicles.
The overall emphasis in the above prior art has thus been on the reduction of the bleach malodour within the product composition or on the hard surface to be cleaned and relatively little attention has been paid to the reduction of bleach malodour arising from the contacting of said composition with skin surfaces, such as hands.
It is therefore an object of the invention to reduce the bleach malodour on skin surfaces arising from the contacting of a hypochlorite containing-cleaning composition with said surfaces.
JP 63108099 describes the use of sulfamic acid or its salt for reducing the chlorine odour emitted from hypochlorite containing-solutions or when said hypochlorite containing-solutions are in contact with the skin.
The Applicant has now found that the use of a polycarboxylate polymer in a hypochlorite bleach containing-cleaning composition fulfills such a need.